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The Eagle Staff finds new carrier enroute to Nijmegen march

Video / July 14, 2016

Transcript

(Drum beating and flute music. Ambient sound of birds chirping.)

Sergeant Moogly Tetrault-Hamel. I’m the Aboriginal Advisor for the Chaplain General of the Canadian Armed Forces. I’m Abenaki First Nation. I have been caring for it for over the past year. But the Staff travels quite a bit. All across Canada. It represents all the Aboriginal People who serve the military. The ones who served, the ones who are serving, and the ones who will serve.

The Eagle Staff that we have right now is breaking ground. My role as the Advisor to the Champion is… he is the custodian to the Eagle Staff itself. I am required to select the carriers from throughout the Defence Team itself. My name is Grant Greyeyes. I’m Master Warrant Officer, the Aboriginal Advisor to the Champion for Aboriginal Peoples within the military.

Eagle Staffs have been part of our First Nations culture for thousands of years. And we’re now bringing it into the military culture. And to do so, you have to have people that carry. I don’t go out looking for carriers, they come. And in passing them, I see the qualities in them, and that’s how I make my recommendation for them to see the teachings.

The Eagle Staff is more than I can describe properly. My name is Dustin Lebel. I am the captain in the Royal Canadian Electrical Mechanical Engineering Corps. Physically it’s a composition of… a wooden bow staff, a Narwhal tusk, a Metis sash, an eagle carving, and of course all the Canadian flags. The eagle carving itself was made from the Qalipu Mi'kmaq people of the East Coast, and that’s where I draw my heritage. And when I saw that, I saw that as a sign of the calling. I can only wish to have something like what he has, which is that grounding; that respect and that appreciation. So through the Eagle Staff, and throughout the rest of my life I hope to find more of that.